Culture & Customs

Khai Minthang

Let me take some time to elaborate my statement of “we are on the verge of going beyond our socio-cultural arena.”

First of all, it would be wise to know the differences between culture and custom. I think culture, in its nature, is dynamic and elastic whereas, custom is much more about ‘tradition like law’ and lacks elasticity. We have quite a lot of priceless and matchless customary practices that have been inherited from our progenitors. That is our inherent culture and custom for being an ethnic group.

Look, let’s go back to a couple of decades and see what our progenitors’ socio-cultural practices looked like. Their occupation and profession were confined to agriculture and its allied occupations. It’s undeniable that almost everything was agro-based. Young folks were trained for the same occupation.

Rochunga Pudaite, in his book entitled “The Education of the Hmar People” has observed, “He learns to share, to play, to co-operate and to conduct himself before he is called upon to shoulder public responsibility. He cannot be selfish in such a family setup, and corporate life of the most congenial type is cultivated. From sunrise to sundown he is surrounded by educational activities and processes.” “The girls received training for one purpose, to become wife and mother. The very little girl had to learn to cook and help her mother. In her own home, she took part in all the other household tasks and learned to sew, knit, spin, weave, husk grain, prepare food, sweep and clean the house, and take care of the younger children so that, by the time she reached marriageable age, she was fully equipped with skills to handle a household of her own” says T. Liankhohau, in his book entitled “Social Cultural Economic and Religious Life of a Transformed Community.”

Transitional Era:

In course of time, the weave of the Gospel hit our land and impacted entirely in terms of our social, economic, political and religious practices. The Gospel bearers brought the Gospel with their culture. They might not essentially impart their culture but, we received their culture in addition to the Gospel. Eventually, the Western culture set a deep root in our land. The weave of the Gospel swept our land and saw a seed of Western socio-cultural practices. A new system of education, literature, social values, economy, politics and religion have been set up. We just began to have a Primary, Secondary and Tertiary occupations with the impact of the Gospel. That’s the reason why I said “we are on the verge of going beyond our socio-cultural arena.” I made this statement as a Zou in general, not pointing my arrow to the Zous living in America or elsewhere in the developed countries. Don’t just try to stick to a single sentence. Try looking at the preceding and the following
sentences. You might also came across the statement “There cannot be full assimilation with the socio-cultural practices of a very distinct and different community or nation.”

Coming to the Theocratic set up of the church government, I strongly believe in the Theocratic system of the church government. As I said I am creationist, I believe in the creation of humankind in the likeness of God. Time and again, heretics tried to create God in their own image. They wanted God to say or opine what they said or opined. Nevertheless, I believe in the invisible Theocratic system and its catholicity in its nature. The law is the Bible and the key to access the King is prayer. We know we ascribe greatness and honor to the King when we say, “Thy will be done.” We know we are not perfect or divine but, we also know that we are imputed His righteousness given the fact the Jesus Christ has died for all of us. This is not a Mormonistic view of the Kingdom of God. It’s not a political kingdom. We also know that God punished the Israelites over and over and over again when the Israelites turned away from God and followed their secular leaders.

We need God fearing leaders in our community - religious, social, economic and political realms.

I knew our debates and discussions are progressive and vital for the development of our community and will eventually have an impact on our community. Thanks for taking time to read. God bless.